Brian Brushwood (2016)

Brian Allen Brushwood is an American magician, podcaster, author, lecturer and comedian. Brushwood is known for the series Scam School, a show where he teaches the audience entertaining tricks at bars so they can "scam" a free drink from their friends.

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About the Brian Brushwood Interview

I've performed at 1,000+ colleges and universities, eating fire and breaking bricks over my head. Nearly 10 years ago I started hosting "Scam School" for Revision3 (now Discovery Digital Networks). I've co-hosted two Billboard #1 comedy albums, and hosted 2 TV specials and a full season of "Hacking the System" for National Geographic (now on Netflix).

Today, we're launching a channel for "The Modern Rogue," where Jason Murphy and I finally get to try everything they told us was too dangerous or impractical for TV. (If Han Solo, James Bond, and Houdini had a two-headed baby, it'd be The Modern Rogue):

Brian Brushwood

TheAnimos

Brian Brushwood

Absolutely loved the show when it was on Rev3. What was your favorite episode to shoot?

BrainDeadGamer

We just did a big shoot with Mac King, Michael Goudeau, and Brent Braun. It was a bit off-brand for scam school, in that we're just 4 magicians hanging out in Mac King's kitchen and swapping random gags, but was just about the most fun I've had in years.

Brian Brushwood

alexwmagic

Brian Brushwood

Will you actually try and fool Penn and Teller? I mean the one you did way back when with the psychic surgery was a pretty famous trick and we know and you know you wouldn't fool them at all with that one. So what I'm asking is, will you develop a trick that you KNOW has a good chance of fooling them?

LimitlessRX

Over the years, Teller's helped me write or fix almost every routine in the show, so if I wanted to fool them, I'd have to come up with a completely new routine.

Brian Brushwood

Hey Brian why do you randomly follow people on twitter? :D

lumphie

I'm very friendly.

Brian Brushwood

Hey man. Long time follower. I'm actually listening to After Things right now while I'm working. I'm the dude who sent in the robot goblin stripper video you dudes talked about on a recent Weird Things.

A couple questions.

How has your growing family influenced your career choices? I remember when you always seemed to be touring, but now you seem to be doing way more stuff from home. Was this a conscious decision, or just kind of a happy coincidence?

How well do you balance work/family/fun/health? Do you feel any part of your life needs a higher percentage of attention right now? Bonnie seems like a super rad lady and a great partner in crime when it comes to your understandably less conventional career choice.

You mentioned being interested in No Man's Sky. Have you played it yet? If so, what did you think?

godbois

Yeah, it's been a conscious decision to do more stuff from home. I pretty much only get one decade with all three girls as kids, and I don't want to miss it. It's even why we launched scamstuff.com: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvPeBn_BtCQ

If happiness was a video game, you'd have three health bars: Money, Health, and Relationships. Each of them is constantly fluctuating, so when I catch one that needs attention I switch things up. But there's definitely times my schedule puts a strain on everybody. (Not just family, but the production team and co-hosts, too)

Brian Brushwood

Pyxxiis

Freaking Richard Garriott (Lord British) performed it on the ISS! That means I get to tell people "Hello. I designed mind control experiments that were carried out on the International Space Station."

Put that on my tombstone, man.

Brian Brushwood

What inspired you to choose doing your kind of "punk rock" magic?

Also, thanks for the follow on Twitter!

ABuck117

Teller wrote decades ago that when creating art, you should let hate, not love, be your driving creative force. When you create art out of love, the best you create is a pale imitation of the thing you love. Instead, make something that's the opposite of everything you hate, and you've created something totally original and wonderful.

When I was getting started in magic, I hated the sequined purple outfits. The dated music. The standard hack lines. The slow-motion process that insulted the audience. I hated that you were only supposed to feel bemusement when watching it, never pants-pissing terror.

So I made a magic show that was the opposite of all that. A magic show for people who think they hate magic shows.

Brian Brushwood

I was going to post some ridiculously insider <> joke but instead I'll ask a real question. I first saw you on TWiT, so how did you and Justin (your comedy album co-conspirator) start creating comedy content?

Guysmiley777

That's the great thing about our friendship: the whole thing has played out in front of the cameras. You can see the first time we did a face-to-face interview (I think... can someone find that "talking head TV" thing we did in 2008?) and you can see the first time Justin appeared on BBLiveShow.

honestly: Justin just kept showing up and being funnier than all of us put together. At some point, it became clear I was hitching myself to his comedy star and not the other way around.

Brian Brushwood

Yo Shwood, love the Scam School series on YouTube, real fun stuff. Got a few quick ones for you:

Has anyone ever "retaliated" to any of the more sinister pranks? I'd love to hear a story.

How many Arcana Token/etc. free beers have you had to buy so far?

Who would win in a fight, Cyclops versus a Green Lantern?

Khronosian

It's shocking to me how nice people are. Like, all of them. Even when I've been in a prank war (like with my friend CJ Johnson), there's this total BDSM cooperative play happening, where neither of us wants to cross the line with the other.

Equally shocking: how few people have claimed the free drink I owe them. They flash a coin with a smile, but then insist on buying ME a drink. Man, people are really, really good.

Most shocking of ALL: The cyclops wins. (I know. Nobody saw it coming.)

...side note: I didn't realize I had made a clever literary reference at the end. Well played, me.

RegularWaffle

Brian Brushwood

How did it feel when Penn said you performed the trick better than Teller?

dexikiix

That was amazing. Penn and I aren't close, so to hear such kind things from him had me floating for weeks.

Brian Brushwood

I remember hearing you on TWiT a long time ago talking about books you were reading at the time. I don't remember the books, but I remember thinking that I had similar taste. Do you have a short list of your absolute favorite books?
Patreon supporter here, btw :D

jbitel

Brian Brushwood

That's how long I've been watching, been watching for a long time, shown you're videos to friends and family. Learned some good stuff over the years. Top 5 channel on Youtube since it's creation imo. Have a good one man!

greenlightranger

thanks so much. This just made my day!

Brian Brushwood

What's your long con?

Tylo_Ren

If things keep progressing, I figure by the time I'm 80 I'll be owed at least one beer from most of the free world. I plan to collect all of them at once, completely destabilizing the economy. During the ensuing panic, I'll push through legislation finally putting all global currencies an ethanol-backed standard.

Brian Brushwood

What inspired you to do Scam School and now Modern Rouge?

jadziamd

I figured I'm not very interesting, but everyone loves to know some clever tricks/hacks. I've been collecting this stuff for literal decades (Jason Murphy, too!), and love sharing it.

Brian Brushwood

Hey Brian, my question is, is there any chance you will be coming over to Australia any time soon? :)

Dat_Pro_Guy

Hot damn, I want to make it to Australia. You guys are like the Texas of Planet Earth. It almost happened this year, so I'm hopeful it'll be soon.

Brian Brushwood

Maybe I'm just dumb and can't find it, but is there a good way to see if/when you might be doing some sort of appearance near me? The only schedule I managed to find on your site was from 2009.

Very related: coming to Ohio anytime soon?

Primesauce

when I was touring 100+ days a year, I was really good about keeping that public calendar updated. Now that we're doing more on-screen production and I'm traveling less, it's tough to put time into.

Your best bet is to keep an eye on my twitter feed: @shwood

Brian Brushwood

Hey Brian! Big fan of Scam School. What is your favourite trick to do if someone just says "Okay, show me some magic"?

Keep up the great work, and great domain.com ads <3

yoguy2

I used to keep the Hundy 500 on me. That visual transformation, making $500 of real money appear in front of their eyes was not only a visual treat, but was socially a great pattern interruption.

Unfortunately, I lost 3 full sets ($600 each): one to the desert, one to a con man, and one to a blackjack table.

Brian Brushwood

Mystalic

oh, man! we totally should! Also: Captivology looks fascinating. Is there an audiobook of it?

Brian Brushwood

What's your meaning of life?

tobiadve

To serve others.

Brian Brushwood

Did you ever consider naming any of your kids and/or pets "Guythreep"?

techsev

Man, I've always marveled at how similar those names are.

Brian Brushwood

How do you feel about how much your channel has improved?
Do you ever feel like going back to the spiky 12yo hair?

KoalaGM

Oh, wow. I knew we were striving for improvement, but hadn't really paused to consider we'd actually done it. Can I pretty-please turn this around? What do YOU see that's changed/improved over the years?

Brian Brushwood

HI brian! I've been watching scam school for years, and was wondering, how do you go about choosing who to include in the video, as in, the extra spectator from the bar?
Also, when will you come back to St. Louis?

iceline22

Rule 1: Whenever possible, find a girl.
Rule 2: If they maintain eye contact and interest while you describe the show, they're probably going to be good on camera.

...and that's pretty much it. We get a wide variety of people on the show, and most work out pretty well.

mdelzell

That performance was at a rowdy bar, but when we performed it at the magic castle, it was this amazing, intimate haunting thing.

Brian Brushwood

Brian, Here is a Bigillion dollars... What reality TV show do you want to make?

MikeKafes

"Pretty Princess Party," in which I delicately discuss the comings and goings of high society socialites while drinking pretend tea with my 3-year-old.

Brian Brushwood

Brian, you've spent a lot of effort on branding yourself and your work. Any tips for the rest of us lazy schlubs, looking to make ourselves stand out in our industries, at interviews, etc.? :) Any books, podcasts, or basic activities would be appreciated.

kevinfairchild

There's no room for the lazy up here.

Just figure out what everyone else is too lazy to do (something like, oh, I don't know... answer every single question in an AMA all day long), and then do it.

DangerousCommercials

Brian Brushwood

I saw you on Penn and Teller's Fool Us. I felt like your trick was awesome but had sentiments of older tricks, thus not fooling them. I've seen you do some pretty awesome things. Do you think you if had a second chance, you'd be able to fool them with something?

GHound

I had and continue to have zero interest in fooling Penn and Teller. I love it as a store conceit, but I've seen good performers mess up their performances by trying to "win" the game nobody (including P&T) really cares about.

The real winners are the ones who walk away with showcases that entertain and delight :-)

Brian Brushwood

Holy crap, I remember the original Scam School episode with this trick, and the website you set up to help people do the trick. Keep up the awesome work Brian, been a huge fan forever

Parkway32

Thanks, man! Means a lot.

Brian Brushwood

Hi Brian!

I watched Scam School from the beginning and learned a lot of cool tricks (but only put a couple to use) What is your favorite trick?

I'm a big fan of yours and you seem like a cool guy to have a few beers with. If you're ever in Des Moines, IA can we grab a beer? 😬

You follow me on Twitter, so I guess you can say things are getting serious between us 😄

I'll check out your new YouTube channel!

The_Inspiring_Dad

My fave go-to is still the first we ever taught: the human chimney. I usually follow it up with a medley like this:

Brian Brushwood

Started listening to Night Attack a couple of months ago. Through you I have discovered Turquoise Jeep, Ali Spagnola, and Scott Sigler. I really appreciate your content and am always looking to expand my interests so who are some of your other favorite content creators across any form of media?

PickShark

Greg Grunberg might be the single best human being on the planet.

Brian Brushwood

I saw you most on TWiT, and its great you've found broader success on traditional media too. How different do you find doing the shows for Nat. Geo., and how much do you think Rev3 has been changed by Discovery?

Also, when is the last time you ran a string/spaghetti through your nose?

_Dimension

oh, jeez. I'm sure I've done a million things I shouldn't feel good about, but one sticks out (and makes me feel like an old man).

When I was a senior in college and the internet was young, I blew what felt like insane money to get Hughes's satellite dish internet service. The promise was 1 megabit downstream over the satellite, and 56k on the upstream (over the modem). The latency sucked, so you'd never game on it, but that downstream was incredible.

(If you are under 30, you simply cannot understand how revolutionary these numbers were at the time.)

Anyway, this was the early days of MP3 swapping (pre-napster times), so most sharing was done in IRC channels that would trade access to FTP's.

So I made a script that kept announcing that people should "come to the MOTHERLODE! Hundreds of FULL ALBUMS! Upload a full album and get FULL LEECH ACCESS!"

With astonishment, I saw Prodigy's "Fat of the Land" download to my computer faster than any file I'd ever seen before. (had no idea what a good album I was getting, too!) Keep in mind, this is the time you'd start a download before going to bed, and hope beyond hope that the connection stayed up all night and you'd have the full album when you woke up.

This thing got THE WHOLE ALBUM in like 30 minutes! We were Prometheus. We had stolen fire.

And, of course, I gave the guy full leech access at our best upstream speed: 56k.

After typing all this out, I just realized I'm not much of a dastardly scam artist.

Brian Brushwood

What's the craziest thing that you've ever done?

rhia160

Talked my way out of going to jail for frolicking naked in a fountain in downtown Austin? Either that or cheated in Vegas. (though my lawyer insists that technically I wasn't the one cheating).

Brian Brushwood

How many beers did you get from one scam, as in what is your record? Mine is three with the metal bending one

pyr0phobic

Man, oh, man... once and only once I went to the bar with something to prove. I told myself I'd buy one beer, and every single other one had to be bought by a stranger via one of the tricks in my book.

Bit of advice: when you're drinking with a purpose, it rarely ends well.

Brian Brushwood

What was it like with the Spill.com crew? I used to listen to their podcasts (and now their new stuff on DoubleToasted), and you were on some of them, but I just wanted to hear some first hand experiences hahaha...

dontjudgemebae

oh, man-- we go WAAAAAAYYYYYYAYYAYAYAYYYYY back. like back to when it was "The Reel Deal" and they were shooting at Austin Cable Access. (shit. Is that really nearly 20 years ago?)

They're some of the funniest, most thoughtful and caring people I've ever known. I'm thrilled for their success, and sad it means it's harder to meet up.

Brian Brushwood

Do you read all 7 Dark Tower books(some people call it quits on 3 or 4), and more importantly do you stop when Steve says to stop at the end of book 7 or do you read to the end? Also thoughts on the film?

FuriouFive

oh, you gotta keep reading, right? Also: there are some fantastic prescriptions of which books to read in what order people have done. My number one advice is to listen to as many of the books as you can narrated by Frank Muller (RIP). They're amazing, and the defined voices of those characters for me forever.

Brian Brushwood

You have provided links in almost all the answers for us lazy yet interested folks. Me like it bruh

smigga

high fives

Brian Brushwood

Huge fan. Love scam school. Have you even felt bored or frustrated for a period of time with magic?

needhelpwithpc1234

Oh, very much so. My early days in magic were fueled by this simmering frustration with magic, magicians, and our reputations in the bigger world.

Brian Brushwood

Was just looking for the new Modern Rogue episode on the Scam School channel, congrats on it getting its own channel. Do you ever tour outside of North America? Would love to see you perform in the UK.

thehempy

The UK and Australia are at the top of my list. Maybe in 2017?

Brian Brushwood

I thought it was cool that you followed me since I'd been watching hacking the System. I guess it was just coincidence though?

fliesamooney

Nope! Far from coincidence. From who you're following, the odds looked good that you would know my work, so I followed you first. (Think of it as if twitter is a party, and I'm the guy shaking hands and trying to start conversations)

Brian Brushwood

Brian! I learned how to do the "Ancient Wizard Magic" card trick from your Scam School YouTube channel! It's pretty nifty :D (both the channel and the trick)

What is the weirdest experience you've had performing magic in front of a live audience?

PS - Thanks for snapping Korey Coleman out of it when Spill went under. If it weren't for your encouragement, then perhaps Double Toasted wouldn't have taken off the way it did. :)

symbiosa

Thanks so much for that! I'm so glad Double Toasted is killing it.

As for wacky shows, oh jeez. I had fruit thrown at my stage in West Virginia... that count? It was an audience of 900 people, and man-oh-man did they not like my show.

Brian Brushwood

Did you ever get that Mister Happy Pants pony that was promised to you at that pony convention?

d4m4s74

NO! AND I STILL WANT ONE!

Brian Brushwood

First off Brian, huge fan. Scam School, behind the scam, modern rouge, it's all amazing.